


Bengal's Courage

by NicciCrowe



Category: Breeds Series - Lora Leigh
Genre: Bengal breeds, Coyotes, Explicit Language, F/M, Forced Sex, NSFW, Rape/Non-con - Freeform, council bastards, mating heat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 03:52:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8355976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicciCrowe/pseuds/NicciCrowe
Summary: They were created, not born.They were trained, not raised.Now the some of the rarest species of Breed are freed, but missing, having escaped even their rescuers. But with them they hold the key to some of the most sensitive knowledge of Breed physiology that is necessary for their survival if they're to understand mating heat and the possible consequences it will have for the Breed race.Unfortunately, Elizabeth Woods is caught in the middle of a war between the Council and the Breeds, captured and subjected to the Council's perverse horrors against her will. Can the Bengal she's tied to forever save her in time, or will she be lost to him forever for the choices he had to make?





	1. Prologue

Elizabeth whimpered as she slowly came to, feeling the cold metal clinched too tightly around her wrists.  She gasped as she realized she couldn’t move or see, couldn’t pull against the restraints, couldn’t even so much as wiggle a toe.

Paralyzed.

Fear flooded her senses to the point where her throat felt clogged with the screams she wanted to let out but choked back. Her memory was hazy, but slowly returning. The last thing she could remember was walking down her street on her way home from work… then she remembered the rough hands that had grabbed her and tossed her in a waiting van.  They had injected her with some sort of paralytic, but she was still perfectly aware and able to speak, and feel everything being done to her. Especially the pain of the restraints.

“What…” she gasped, her breath hitching on a sob. “Wh…where am I? Please…. please let me go, I haven’t done anything… Please…” her voice was thick with the tears that leaked out and soaked the blindfold tied over her face. She was restrained in a humiliating position, quite like the way she had to lay at the gynecologist office, her feet secured in stirrups, keeping her legs splayed open.

“Ah, Jensen. I apologize for my lateness, one of the subjects was displaying a strange amount of aggression, so we had to have his hormone levels tested,” a cold, female voice spoke from somewhere to her left, heels clacking on tile growing nearer to her. Elizabeth wish she could have shivered, the paper thin hospital gown she had awoken in doing nothing to block the chill of the room.  Her teeth chattered, and she whimpered again, heart racing as she desperately wanted to move her head around and try to locate where the voices were coming from.

“No worries, I have her prepped and ready to be inseminated. Do you have the sperm?” a pleasant-sounding male voice came from her right. Elizabeth’s fear flared into full blown panic, and she began to cry in earnest.

“No! Please, you can’t do this! Please, just let me go… I won’t tell anyone, I won’t do anything, please… I just want to go home,” she cried, almost screaming, frightened and frustrated beyond belief that she couldn’t move an inch.

Amazingly enough, she could hear a faint roar as if it was echoing down a hallway, almost like a tiger…

Where the hell _was_ she?

The female voice scoffed and tutted, a rhythmic tapping began which sounded like a pen on a clipboard.

“He’s been like this since we brought her in earlier today. Pacing his cage and growling constantly. He even tried to bite one of the guards,” disdain and disgust filled the female voice, her pen now scratching on the paper quite close to Elizabeth’s ear.

“Hmm… maybe he’s interested in the female?” the male voice said ponderously, pressing two fingers into Elizabeth’s jugular to mark her pulse, then proceeding to take her blood pressure, temperature, and after a light struggle with her jaw, a swab of her mouth. Then to her mortification Elizabeth felt cool latex against her vagina, and despite her sobs and pleads for them to stop he performed a vaginal exam and swab.

“Do you think?” the female had been saying. Elizabeth could only guess that they were doctors or scientists by what they were doing to her, but she couldn’t think much beyond the choking fear and humiliation that her body was being treated like a scientific specimen, touched and violated against her will.

“Should we inseminate her? Or let him try to do it?” the male voice chuckled.

Elizabeth’s panic was beginning to overwhelm her, and she began hyperventilating, sobbing for mercy from these two uncaring monsters.

“Why not? If his sperm doesn’t take hold we can just try the IVF after. It might work better coming from intercourse, anyways. Something about how the vagina and cervix react…” The female voice mused, then her heels clacked away.

Elizabeth’s wrenching sobs were ignored, and a pit of dread began to grow in her stomach. They were going to have her raped. They were going to try to impregnate her with a strange man’s semen through rape because there was a slight chance it may work better than artificial insemination.

If she’d been able to move, Elizabeth would have vomited.

What seemed like hours later, but was most likely only a few minutes, the sound of heels and many boots approaching came to her attention, and she tried to stifle her tears. There was no use for them. She was an object of experiment, nothing more. She was going to be raped, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, since she was paralyzed and restrained. No one to save her. Pain and despair radiated through her chest, and she violently wished she were home, safe and warm in her bed. She wanted her momma. She wanted her dad. She wanted to be anywhere in the entire world but here, in this place, facing the horror she was about to undergo.

“Prep her, will you Jensen?” the female voice instructed, and the table she was lying on moved and tilted mechanically, positioning her so she was more easily accessible to whoever was going to rape her.

Elizabeth’s cries intensified, her pleads for them to stop and let her leave going unheeded. She felt the sharp prick of a needle in her arm, and she let out a throttled scream of rage at the helplessness of her situation. Seconds trickled by.

Then she felt it.

Need flared in her lower belly, and she whimpered. This couldn’t be happening. The bastards had injected her with an aphrodisiac. Her vaginal muscles clenched against her will and she moaned at the sensation, the steady burn spreading to her womb, her vagina flexing again, feeling desperately empty. If she could have moved her hips would have been grinding, longing for friction, a easing of this aching need that was slowly but surely heating up her entire body.

“Please…” she whimpered in denial.

“Alpha 13O6, you are ordered to have intercourse with this female until you ejaculate inside of her fully. Failure to do so will result in the death of one of your littermates. Do you understand?” The female voice was pure ice right now, and Elizabeth would have shivered if she could at the furious responding growl she heard from by her feet.

Wait, a growl?

She couldn’t think much past the steady heat of the aphrodisiac. It bordered on uncomfortable, but she found she could breathe around it if she focused. Her vagina clenched again, and she whimpered. Knowing she was going to be raped didn’t help suppress the lust seeping through her at the moment. Defeated, she braced herself mentally for the violation, trying to distance herself and think of something else.

“Not much fun fucking a doll, doctor. Can you at least allow her to move?” a deep, resonating voice suddenly growled, and Elizabeth’s eyes widened underneath the blind fold. The voice was way too fucking sensual to be real. It sounded like liquid chocolate and dark wine, reminded her of stormy nights and cozy fires. She shook herself mentally. What the fuck was wrong with her? This man, no matter what his voice sounded like, was her rapist-to-be. Although, it didn’t seem as though this was something he was voluntarily doing if the death threat against his “littermates” was anything to go by.

_Wait, littermates?_

Trying to sift through all of this information as well as the haze of lust that had descended upon her mind was too much for Elizabeth, and she barely missed the second prick of a needle in her arm. She gasped as her motor control slowly, agonizingly returned to her limbs, and as soon as the ability to move reached her abdomen and hips, she arched her hips, desperate for any friction at all to relieve the burn of lust.

The first touch of his hands on her legs were like brands of fire, and she moaned again, half sobbing at the horror of what was being done to her, and to him. Alpha 13O6. He didn’t even have a name; like a slave, or a prisoner. Was he a prisoner like her, too? She felt an odd stab of compassion for this man, and at the exact same moment she felt his fingers twitch on her legs, as if he were shocked at something. She shivered, but not from cold this time. His hands felt large, and broad. The aphrodisiac must have been messing with her head for her to be so focused on his sensuality rather than the fact that he was being forced to violate her.

His hands brushed a path of flames up her thigh to her abdomen, and she felt the brief touch of something smooth, hard, and hot against the lips of her pussy. Whimpering, she simultaneously wanted to pull away, and push closer for some sort of relief. She panted, shaking her head back and forth at the confusing sensations and desires rioting through her.

His thumbs brushed her lower abs a few times, too brief to be considered a true caress, but something about it felt like he was trying to tell her something. Or comfort her. _I’m sorry_ , they seemed to say.

Then she felt his tongue against her pussy.

The slight roughness of his tongue as it slowly rasped up from her slit to her clit send her mind reeling, and she let out a loud cry, shuddering under his touch. He repeated it, then settled his tongue around her clit, circling it lazily before licking it decadently, and Elizabeth was lost. His tongue seemed to be doing something strange to her, because the burn of the aphrodisiac suddenly jumped up several notches, getting hotter and hotter with each heartbeat. Her skin suddenly felt too sensitive to bear, even the caress of air against her nipples was agonizing. She found herself begging again, for what in particular she wasn’t sure, but she needed something. This burn was going to drive her insane if she didn’t get some sort of relief right this second.

Suddenly his mouth was gone, and she felt the head of his cock nudge her entrance again. Her hips arched towards him, moaning at the feel of his iron hot member. He growled, low and sensual before nudging his cock between the lips to her entrance, and her grinding efforts doubled. She couldn’t understand how it felt so good, how his touch seemed to stoke the fires inside of her brighter. This was rape. She was being taken against her will, and yet here she was, writhing like a whore for more. Shame and humiliation warring with mindless desire threatened to suffocate her, until his hips flexed and he buried a few inches of his cock in her.

“Oh, God!” she screamed, back arching off the table. Pleasure whipped throughout her senses, echoing through every nerve ending. His hips bunched and flexed, thrusting gently inside her, his cock sinking a little deeper with each thrust. Elizabeth gasped, moaning at the feel of him. He was larger than any man she’d ever had before, but not uncomfortably so. Definitely enough to touch every hidden spot inside her that made her vision blurry.

He let out an animalistic, throttled snarl as he sunk to the hilt inside her, and she shuddered, hips gyrating of their own accord to feed the flames his cock stoked even higher inside of her. After a few seconds pause where he seemed to collect himself, he began to pump his cock in her, slow and hard. Elizabeth let out a shattered moan, her head tossing side to side as the pleasure rocked through her, the raging need burning hotter and hotter with each thrust. At this point she ceased to care if this was against her will, it was against his will, too, but by god, she had never experienced such pleasure in her entire life. The sheer need she felt for him overpowered every other feeling she had, and it frightened her. The speed and depth to which her need for him grew couldn’t be explained by a simple aphrodisiac. There was something wrong.

Her thoughts scattered, however, when he began to thrust harder in her, low growls rumbling from his chest as her screams grew louder. She felt herself racing towards that pinnacle of release, and she so desperately needed it that she sobbed, begging him for more.

“Harder… please… oh, god… _Alpha_!” his title spilled unbidden from her lips, and his responding dominant snarl sent pleasure lancing through her. That’s exactly what he was. An alpha. Dominant as hell and determined to fuck her into oblivion. Her eyes flew open as suddenly she felt his teeth lock onto her shoulder, piercing the flesh. Instead of pain, however, she detonated.

Her shrill, piercing scream echoed as she lost herself in the violent maelstrom of pleasure. Her release destroyed her, utterly laying waste to her senses. Pleasure cascaded through her in violent waves, the heat in her only growing hotter as his snarls grew louder against her shoulder, his thrusts getting harder. She knew he was close, and she didn’t understand why she desperately needed him to come. She had never wanted anything more in the world as much as she wanted it. She tilted her head back and let out a shuddering cry…

…And then the world around them exploded.

The violence of the blast threw Alpha slightly off of her, and she gasped, her head tossing about wildly as she tried to think through the haze of lust to figure out what was going on. A stab of panic lanced through her as her restraints released, and she heard the sounds gunfire and yelling not far away.

Immediately her hand moved up and clumsily ripped off the blindfold, and the first things her eyes opened to were furious, liquid gold eyes.

She froze, staring at the man in front of her, who was currently bleeding from the temple. He was easily 6 foot 4, broad chested with sculpted muscles that lead down to a huge cock standing out from his body at full attention. The mushroomed head was purple, and she could practically see the blood pulsing in the veins of his cock. Deeply tanned thighs sported four black stripes each, framing his cock beautifully, yet animalistically. Her eyes snapped back up to his face, an errant thought wondering if even Greek gods looked that good, and she saw the pointed incisors at the sides of his mouth.

_Oh. Shit._

It was as if he were truly a human version of a tiger. Much like the people she had seen on the TV just a few weeks ago claiming they were Feline Breeds, government experiments that had been trained, tortured, and held captive for years. She would have pondered the sheer insanity of it if her womb hadn’t chosen that moment to spasm so violently she shrieked, and fell to her side, curled in the fetal position. The need was so violent her body was protesting the absence of his.

“Oh, god…” she gasped, and glanced to see the fear and concern that flickered through his gaze as he moved towards her.

“We have to leave, now,” his deep, rumbling voice entranced her, and she nodded, trying to pant passed the pain.

“What’s happening? Where are we? What…” she swallowed her next words, grimacing in regret. _What are you_? She wanted to ask, but feared his reaction.

“I’ll explain when we get out, querida. We need to go,” his lightly accented voice intrigued her, but she allowed him to pick her up and rush her out of the room. She moaned at the jostling, the feel of his skin hot wherever she was pressed against him. She wanted to rub against him like a damn cat in heat, and to her mortification she found herself doing just that, pressing her nipples against his chest. Objectively, she realized they were in the middle of what had turned into a warzone, but the heat in her body was only climbing higher.

“Just… hold on for a little while baby,” he bit out, growling softly as he moved stealthily away from the gunfire, slipping silently down halls past dozens of people in white lab coats scurrying everywhere. Nearby she could hear roars and snarls mixed with the gunfire, and her confusion broke through the cloud of lust.

“Tigers?” she mumbled her assumption, and a weary sigh full of regret was her only answer. If he was a captive Breed, then that meant this was a Council lab, and wouldn’t that just make it her lucky day? And if stripes on his thighs were any indication of his supposed rarity, they were in a load of shit.

A deep chuckle rumbled underneath her ear, and she realized she had said her last thought out loud.

“Yeah, up shit creek, but we still have a paddle—” his words were cut off by a quick retort of gunfire from behind them, and he slammed against the wall behind a pillar, cursing virulently.

“Motherfucking coyotes,” he snarled, and Elizabeth stared at him in confusion and shock.

“What?”

If he had a reply it was cut off by another barrage of bullets. He ducked, wrapping his body around hers as dry wall and shards of tile flew past their heads, raining dust down on them.

“Shit!” he hissed, his wickedly sharp incisors flashing. Yells echoed down the hall, growing closer, intermixed with rapid gunfire. The adrenaline was keeping Elizabeth aware and processing what was happening quickly, but it was also having the adverse effect of making the heat in her steadily build hotter. She bit back a whimper, burying her face in his shoulder, unable to stop her hips from grinding on his thigh.

“I know, I know, baby, just hang on a little longer,” his voice was tight with regret and lust.

Elizabeth knew it was stupid. She knew it was absurd. She was fully aware of these things. But his skin was right under her lips, and she suddenly couldn’t deny the urge. It overpowered her thought process completely.

She bit him. Hard.

“Fucking! Fuck… shit…” his curses were strangled moans, and Elizabeth wanted to feel sorry, but she had managed to break the skin, and the fairness of that made her feel smug. He had bitten her, so why couldn’t she bite him? Well, clearly she was on something. Was she high? Drunk? They were in the middle of a fucking shoot out and here she was biting him like a fucking weirdo.

Clearly, the entire situation was just completely making her lose her sanity.

The gunfire mercifully turned away from them, and a short firefight ensued down the hall. Their attackers were being distracted by their would-be rescuers, so it would seem.

“Mother fu—” Alpha’s curse was cut off again as another explosion rocked the lab. Elizabeth was thrown against the wall, her head smacking hard against the concrete.

 _Fuck. Concussion._ She diagnosed herself quickly as her vision swam, trying to get her bearings. Where was she? She coughed harshly from the smoke filling the once stark white hallway, threatening to choke her. Holding up the tatters of her hospital gown to make a makeshift mask against the heavy smoke, she wobbled to her feet. She could still hear gunfire, but was too dazed to figure out whether it was friendly or not. She stumbled a few steps, trying to force the floor to stop rolling and pitching underneath her feet. What was happening? Gunfire. She needed to get away from the gunfire. She stumbled for a few feet, then took off in a crooked jog, trying to find her way out of the maze of hallways and rooms. She took several turns, trying to ignore the bodies sprawled sporadically on the floors, and what were clearly cages that had once held people. Her feet were stained red from the puddles of blood she couldn’t avoid, and she clenched her teeth, determined not to let her concussion make her sick.

Finding a nondescript door, she tested it to see if it would open, and was surprised to be met with cool night air as she opened it. Not wasting any time, she slipped out of the smoke filled lab, gasping fresh air. Her legs wobbled, and suddenly collapsed under her as the adrenaline took its toll. Not two breaths had passed when her womb shuddered in another agonizing spasm, and she cried out, curling in on herself as the mind numbing pain stole her breath. What was happening to her? This couldn’t be natural, or normal. The very night air felt like too much against her sensitized skin, she could even feel it against her exposed clit since she was essentially naked barring the few scraps of paper gown still hanging limply on her shoulders.

Where was Alpha?

She whirled around unsteadily, looking back at the door to the lab. It was fairly hidden on this side of what appeared to be a mountain, and she knew that somehow, by luck she had found it.  In her concussed daze she had completely forgotten Alpha, and she worried her lip with her teeth. Should she go back? Why would she? She didn’t owe anything to him. He was forced to violate her body that was all. She didn’t owe her allegiance to him, or her time. They had both been raped by those scientists forcing them to do what they had done. …He was better off without her, she decided, but something inside of her she couldn’t understand screamed in denial of being parted from him.  

Shaking her head of her thoughts and taking a steadying breath, she began her slow, careful descent from the mountain, heading for the distant lights of what appeared to be a town. Every step took agonizing effort past the shuddering need in her womb. She began to shiver, feeling sweat dampen the paper gown barely covering her. The air was cold, since it was late October, but she felt uncomfortably hot. Her vision was swimming and she frequently stumbled on rocks and roots poking out of the ground that she couldn’t quite see in this darkness. A sob caught in her throat at the sheer misery and hopelessness of her situation.

Another excruciating spasm took hold of her womb, and she fell to her knees, collapsing to the ground and crying out hoarsely. “Help…” she sobbed, knowing no one could hear her, no one could save her, simply praying for it to end. She was mindless with the pain, unable to function or even form a coherent thought besides _please let this end_. She lay there for what seemed like an eternity, harsh shuddering breaths intermixed with cries and coughs all she could manage, when suddenly, bright lights flared onto her from above. She cracked her eyes open enough to see that it was some sort of aircraft, before she finally, blessedly passed out from the pain.


	2. The One Who Waits

Six months later

Elizabeth stared at the pill bottle full of little blue pills, laying on her bed. She grimaced from the heat beginning to spread through her, and reluctantly opened the lid to take one. She breathed deeply through the beginning spasms until after a few minutes they began to ease, and then finally subside. But with them went the sharpest burn of the heat, and she couldn’t help but feel resentful. She had learned everything in the lab at Sanctuary where she had been taken after her rescue from the mountainside by the Breed helijet. She supposed she was lucky they had staged the rescue for when it happened, or else she very well could have been subject to more rapes and tests for weeks, or even months.

A mate. She was a mate to the Breed that had been forced to take her in the labs, but their mating hadn’t been completed. Ely had explained dryly what the Feline Breed penis did during intercourse with the mate, along with what they knew about the bite, and other symptoms of mating heat. Apparently she was just that lucky to have one of the strongest heats they had ever encountered yet, and was thus forced to return to Sanctuary every month for testing. Alone, since her mate had apparently disappeared.

The bastard, she thought venomously. He’d left her alone to deal with this madness, probably off scot free not having to deal with any of the horrible symptoms or incapacitating lust. Sure, the pills helped quite a bit, but they made her feel empty. Dead inside. Like something huge was missing from her.

Callan Lyons had assured her time and again that they were looking for the missing Bengals from that lab, since apparently her Alpha hadn’t been the only one to escape not only the lab, but the Breeds rescuing them as well. Six months had passed, however, and there was no sign of them at all; and Elizabeth continued to suffer alone.

She hated going to Sanctuary for her monthly tests, simply because of the look in every person’s eyes when they saw her there. Pity, sorrow, and sometimes even righteous anger from some of the males. Her mate had abandoned her to suffer alone, and though Elizabeth didn’t think Alpha truly knew what the mating was, or that she was even his mate, she couldn’t help but selfishly feel the same. The hell her body went through every month was slightly diminished by the drugs, but it never fully went away. She barely slept for those seven to ten days when the heat came, could barely stand the feel of certain cloths against her skin. She would lock herself in her room at Sanctuary, only emerging to eat or go to the labs, keeping her head down and only speaking when she was spoken to—if only to just avoid the horrible pity in every human and Breed’s eyes that beheld her.

In some way she supposed she appreciated their sympathy and compassion, but after six months of it she was growing tired of being the “poor abandoned mate”. She was starting to become angry. How was this at all fair, that she was subjected to this hell all alone? She could barely stand to look at Merinus and Callan, the obvious love and devotion between them was a dagger in her heart, because she knew she’d never have that. She had the heat, but no one to share it with, no one to help ease it in her. No one to love her, and be her’s forever. Mates were for life. She couldn’t even move on and find someone else to help keep her warm if she wanted to; and sometimes, when the heat was at its worst, she admitted she wanted to. Any of the too-gorgeous Breed males walking around Sanctuary would have done, but no, she had to be chained to the only Breed who was completely MIA, and impossible to find.

She wasn’t technically alone. She did have a mate, somewhere, but only god knew where he was. Even then, she had no idea if she would ever have that special devotion from him, or the love that she craved. She didn’t even know him. Their only intimate experience had been forced, a bastardization of what true mates should have together. He had been tender, though, when carrying her through the lab. He had wrapped his body around hers when the bullets rained down upon them, protecting her with his own life.

Elizabeth shook herself, hating that her mind had once again drifted to that night. No matter what had happened, or how he had acted, that was no basis for love or a relationship. She needed to stop day dreaming and get back to reality. Her mate was gone, and she had to continue on with her life without him if she ever hoped to have some semblance of normalcy in her life.

A knock on her door brought her out of her reverie, and she called a soft “come in”. Glancing up, she saw Merinus step through the door, and managed a warm smile.

“Hey, what brings you here?” she swiveled to a sitting position, placing the pill bottle back on her night stand. Merinus smiled warmly back, toeing off her slippers and crawling onto the bed to sit with her.

“Just checking in. You never leave your room when you’re here, Liz,” Merinus’ voice edged into the sad pity that Elizabeth so hated, and she forced herself to shrug and laugh jokingly.

“Well I’m only here for a week each month, and I’d rather not get in anyone’s way. You’re all working so hard to increase security here, I don’t want to become a distraction or just one more person to protect,” she laced her fingers together, hoping Merinus bought the half lie. What she didn’t admit was that she also avoided leaving her room so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the looks of pity from Callan’s pride, and the rest of the Breeds that were trickling in slowly but surely over the months. Sanctuary was rapidly growing as more and more Breeds escaped, or were rescued and brought to the safe haven. Each and every one, however, smelled the mating heat on her, and also the fact that her mate had not touched her in a very long time. She was sure she barely carried his scent now.

“You really wouldn’t be a bother! You could hang out with me, and help me keep these ruffians in order while this guy gets bigger and bigger,” she lay a gentle hand on the swell of her stomach with a rueful smile, and Elizabeth was shocked at the sharp pang of envy that swept through her. Merinus had created life with her mate, and Elizabeth had yet to even really connect with her mate at all. Elizabeth could even see it, a small boy with rakish black hair and bright gold eyes like his father, her cheeks and nose…

“How are you, by the way?” Elizabeth forced herself to focus on the matter at hand and not her desperate loneliness. She smiled but didn’t rub Merinus’ belly affectionately like she would have with any other woman. Breed mates couldn’t stand the touch of another, even if it was someone of the same sex, or if that someone was mated. Elizabeth only felt mild discomfort at the touch of others, but her mating hadn’t been fully completed, so she supposed she should be thankful for at least that.

“Good, though I can’t stop eating!” she lamented, and they both dissolved into giggles. They lapsed into an easy conversation about pregnancy and the ups and downs of the experience, how Callan felt about it, and eventually, they landed on the tenuous issue of the baby’s security once he was born.

“I can’t help but worry about it,” Merinus sighed, rubbing her belly absently. “Callan would lay down his life for his child, but I can’t help but wish he didn’t have to,” her lips pulled into a small moue of displeasure.

“I understand, it must be so hard,” Elizabeth sighed, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “I wish I could help, but as a sort-of mate I’m more of a liability,” she grimaced.

“Well… that’s actually what I originally came here to talk to you about,” Merinus said sheepishly, and Elizabeth frowned warily. That tone was never good when Merinus used it. It meant that the person hearing it was definitely not going to like what she was about to say.

“What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

“Well… You come here every month, and to get you here and out safely is risky every single time. Your convoy has been attacked before, and though we’ve been lucky a few times, luck just isn’t enough to rely on,” she began, and Elizabeth felt her stomach flutter with nerves. Where was Merinus going with this?”

“So, we, I mean, Callan and I, and the other Pride members, were wondering if you’d consider moving into Sanctuary permanently?” Merinus finished in a rush, and Elizabeth gaped at her.

“Me? But I…” she grimaced. She couldn’t say she wasn’t a real mate, because she was. She just didn’t have her mate, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still a liability to the Breed community out and about in the world. If Council scientists managed to capture her, she was dead meat. Literally. She shuddered to even think of the horrors that would be in store for her as a captured Breed mate.

“You would be safer here, and I know that doesn’t mean much right now because we get attacked every month,” Merinus’ eyes narrowed in frustration and anger, but Elizabeth still saw her point. She brushed her hand down Merinus’ hair as a sign of affection rather than holding her hand, and smiled, feeling the bleak resignation settle in her chest.

“It’s okay, Merinus. I agree. I certainly don’t want to divert man power away from the protection of Sanctuary, and eventually word is going to get out somehow that I’m not just a family friend of yours, and once the Council knows I become a target, and therefore a liability.” She sighed, and Merinus smiled tearfully at her.

“I know it’s asking a lot, but we can find work for you here, and maybe Ely…” she trailed off, and Elizabeth looked down at her knees, biting the inside of her lip so that she wouldn’t cry either.

“Yeah, maybe Ely can cure Mating Heat.”

She sincerely doubted it.

\------

Augustus narrowed his eyes at the picture in front of him. It was her. The woman who had run away from him the night his lab had been rescued. Those eyes tormented him in his dreams, and no matter how he tried he’d never been able to shake his insane lust for her. Other women didn’t interest him now, he could hardly touch them without feeling as though he were going to vomit, and so he was trapped in this insanity. And it was her fault.

From the quiet reports he’d gathered, it appeared what was happening between him and Elizabeth was a phenomenon known as the mating frenzy. His team had stolen many files from the lab the night of the rescue, but of course Augustus hadn’t been able to help with that since he’d been balls deep in this beautiful woman. He still awoke in night sweats, the remembered pleasure slamming through his thoughts, his cock unbearably hard, his tongue itchy and swollen and spilling a strange taste almost constantly. He had never known pleasure like that in his entire life. Her body had been like liquid flame pouring over his senses, making him mindless and animalistic in need. How else could he explain the bizarre bite he had left on her shoulder?

In this picture, the edge of her shirt had shifted ever so much that if he looked closely, he could see one of the marks from his teeth. He grinned, surprised at the smug satisfaction that hummed through him. She still bore his mark. She belonged to him, and soon he was going to claim her.

Whether she was ready or not.


	3. The Reckoning

                You know, in all honesty, Elizabeth should have known that going out for a walk by herself was a stupid idea, knowing her track record.

                She had just wanted a little fresh air, promising herself that she’d stay within shouting distance of the house, and even letting one of the guards on duty know that she was only going to be out for 10 minutes.

                Well, shit had sure hit the fan.

                She sprinted through the undergrowth, letting out another shrill scream as she felt another dart whistle by her ear, barely missing her. She hoped the lions patrolling the grounds heard her and came to her rescue, and hopefully didn’t eat her. Wouldn’t that just be ironic?

                A harsh growl echoed from her left, and she barely had time to gasp as something big and hard slammed into her, throwing her to the ground. She cried out as she landed on her wrist painfully, and winced as an abrupt shot went off, followed by a muffled thud somewhere nearby. She blinked her eyes furiously, and came face to face with the man who haunted her dreams every night.

                “Alpha?” she gasped, suddenly aware of the heat that had begun pooling in her abdomen, spreading slowly everywhere throughout her body. It wasn’t as intense as the first time, but she was sure she had the pills to thank for that. A harsh growl rumbled from his throat as he took several deep breaths, obviously smelling the alteration to her scent from the drugs.

                “My mate,” he growled, and her eyes widened in disbelief.

                “Oh really? How about the last six months, asshole?” she bit back in outrage, shoving at him to get him to roll off of her. She was pinned to the pine needle covered forest floor beneath his huge body, and her sensuality was stretching lazily in anticipation of everything she could imagine him doing to her.

                He frowned, as if confused. “What do you mean? You ran away from me,” he rumbled, and it was really not fair how fucking sexy his voice was. How was that legal?

                “I ran—” she scoffed in pure disbelief. “I fucking hit my head on the wall after that explosion and managed to stumble my way out of there, no thanks to you. Where the hell were you when all that was happening, hmm?” she hissed, pushing at him again to no avail. She might as well have been pushing against a brick wall. “Why am I even explaining myself to you, clearly you’re too jar headed to comprehend,” she bit out acerbically, and his eyes widened in male outrage. But she was a mate who had gone six months without him, six months of suffering and hell, and he was damn well going to pay for it.

                At that moment, his eyes narrowed, and he turned before she could even blink, crouched in front of her his a gun leveled on several Enforcers that had silently stepped through the undergrowth.

                “Hey! Don’t shoot them you idiot!” she yelled, standing up and kicking him as hard as she could. His jaw fell open, and he stared at her in utter surprise. She could hear soft snickering from the group of Enforcers who had immediately relaxed at her apparently lack of danger. “They’re fucking friendlies! Are you insane?!” she growled at him, stomping over to the group. She was brought up short by a firm hand around her upper arm and she whipped her head around to stare at him in outrage.

                “Get. Your. Hand. Off. Me.” She gritted through her teeth, and he narrowed his eyes at her.

                “You think I’m going to let you go? With _them_?” he narrowed his eyes at the group of men, who were watching in amusement the show down between mates that they had seen many times between Merinus and Callan. They teasingly called it The Ass Chewing, and Elizabeth had been taking pointers from Merinus for months.

                “Wow, you really are brain dead, Alpha. We’re in Sanctuary, dumb ass, and by the way, who was shooting at me?” she turned to glare at the Enforcers, who sobered now that her ire was turned on them.

                “Council, they were trying to capture you. Your friend there took him out though, nice shot,” the Enforcer named Jonas stated coolly, his strange silver eyes sparkling with amusement and calculation. She glared at him an extra second to let him know what she thought of his attitude, and she barely caught the twitch of the corner of his mouth.

                “I’m her mate, not her friend, and my name is Augustus,” he told her, and she raised an eyebrow.

                “Okay, Augustus. Can you stand the fuck down before this turns into an unnecessary fire fight and you give Ely more work than she needs to do? She’s our doctor by the way, the one that’s been keeping me sane while you’ve been off fucking around for six months and leaving me to deal with this hell,” she snapped, slapping his hand off of her arm. He was too shocked at her action to actually stop her from doing it, and she stomped off in the direction of the estate house. Her glare leveled at the Enforcers shut up their chuckles real quick, and her brusque gesture back to the house ensured that several of them followed her as a protection detail.

                “You better watch yourself, Augustus, that one can flay a man at fifty paces and not bat an eye,” Jonas drawled. “Now, why don’t you explain to me where the hell you and your men have been? You can catch up with your mate in a while.”

                Augustus grimaced at him, entirely sure that he wasn’t exaggerating.

\---

                Elizabeth stopped short that evening when she walked into the conference room, seeing Callan, Kane, Sherra, Dawn, and Merinus sitting at the table along with Tanner, Augustus, and Jonas. She narrowed her eyes in mock anger at Jonas and he smirked at her. During the few conversations they had had, Elizabeth had slyly weighed in on some of his machinations, and to her delight Jonas let her discuss strategy and manipulation. They had a friendly comradery that was effaced with mock dislike. Merinus had expressed her disbelief that Elizabeth even liked him, but she shrugged, unable to explain why she and Jonas got along. Most people were fed up with his arrogance within seconds of meeting him, she found it funny.

                “This better be worth my time,” she told him, and he only tilted his head. She could tell he was amused as hell, though. Sometimes the Breeds were shocked at how well she could read them, some of them even jokingly accusing her of being a Breed herself, that’s how accurate at gauging people’s emotions she was. She just wrote it off as strong intuition.

                Callan, however, was a mixture of angry and frustrated. “Hello, Elizabeth, thank you for joining us. I understand this may be… difficult for you,” he practically growled, his dislike for Augustus pouring off him in waves. Callan had come to think of her as another sister, especially since she was so close with Merinus, and his resulting outrage on her behalf was understandable. He had had to watch her those first few months when the hormonal therapy hadn’t worked as well, and she had suffered from the mating heat alone.

                “Don’t worry about it, Callan,” she said breezily, although she could feel the uncomfortable heat beginning to build in her body. Just being in the same room as Alpha… or Augustus, as he had apparently started calling himself, was making the heat worse for her. After six months without him, it felt like she was starving, and he was the only food available in a hundred miles.

                “Augustus has explained to us what happened with his team in the Appalachians, but has been reticent about the information his team stole from their lab the night of the rescue.” He shot another glare at Augustus, who appeared unfazed.

                “The information is coded, and from what we’ve been able to decode, extremely sensitive information that could mean the salvation or downfall of Breeds. Excuse my _reticence_ , but I need to be absolutely certain the information will be safe here. Council spies are everywhere, and I cannot risk this information falling into the wrong hands,” Augustus shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. Elizabeth found herself staring at the way it made his muscles bulge slightly, and she swallowed, trying to focus on anything but him.

                “Where and why have you been hiding for the past six months?” Kane questioned, clearly distrustful of Augustus.

                “I can’t say where, because it’s our last secret safe house. I won’t put my people in jeopardy who choose to remain separate from public Breed society. It’s their choice whether they choose to join this pride or not. I’m of the opinion that we should, but I know there are a few who are doubtful still. I brought a few of my team with me, they’re camped in the mountains awaiting orders whether to advance or retreat,” he said matter of factly. “As for why we’ve been hiding for six months, again, the information. I had no way of knowing whether Sanctuary was reliable or safe, and it was simply too risky to expose these files to possible Council theft. My lab conducted experiments the main branch was unaware of, it would seem.”

                Many eyes turned to him in curiosity then, and also trepidation. Elizabeth couldn’t stop staring at his lips. She was beginning to lose focus of the discussion. His eyes flashed to hers, and her face coloured against her will. They were molten gold, and full of dark promises that made her pussy clench in need. She had to escape.

                The meeting dragged on for another ten minutes, and Elizabeth sat there in misery as she knew every Breed in the room could smell the heat rolling off her. Once it concluded, she stood and all but ran out of the room after a friendly goodbye to everyone, avoiding eye contact with Augustus. She could still feel his gaze burning into her back as she left, and she went as quickly as she could back to her room.

                Taking a deep breath, she passed a hand over her face, trying to get her bearings. She shouldn’t be reacting this strongly while on the drugs. She needed to go see Ely.

                Biting her lip, she glanced warily at the door. What were the chances she could make it down to the labs without Augustus accosting her?

                With a grimace, she realized slim to none, and went to take a cool shower in the adjoining bathroom to her suite.

                Half an hour later, feeling much refreshed and pampered with her new moisturizer Dawn had bought her as a gift last month, she stepped into her room in her fluffy towel and stopped dead in her tracks.

                Facing the bathroom door, seated ever so comfortably on her bed, was Augustus.

                “What are you doing here?” she demanded, not daring to take another step into the room.

                “You’re avoiding me, mate,” his voice was dangerously soft, and sinfully dark. She repressed a shudder, and instead glared at him.

                “I don’t remember inviting you in here, you need to leave,” she narrowed her eyes at him as he casually gripped the bottom of his shirt and tugged, pulling it up and off, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor. Why did he have to be so fucking cut? Could she catch a break?

                “Last I checked we had some unfinished business, _mate_ ,” he flicked his tongue on the ‘t’, and unzipped his form fitting jeans. Heat flooded her pussy, but she continued to glare at him.

                “Oh you mean when you were forced to fuck me? How romantic,” she bit out acerbically, and his eyes narrowed.

                “You’re mine, regardless of the circumstances.”

                “Bull shit. I’m no one’s, and you better understand that real quick, buddy.”

                She supposed his responding grin should have been some sort of warning sign.

                Before she could blink she was tossed onto the bed unceremoniously. He tugged off his jeans in one quick motion, (of course he wasn’t wearing any damn underwear, because why would he,) and then he was crawling over her.

                Elizabeth’s pulse jumped to a gallop, and her breaths came short and harsh. What was happening? She was supposed to…

                That thought was cut off as Augustus groaned, and captured her lips with his. Elizabeth gasped, and he took that opportunity to swipe his tongue into her mouth.

                His taste exploded through her senses, like cinnamon, honey, and cloves. Dark and spicy and hot. She moaned, drawing on his tongue as it entered her mouth again, eliciting a deep growl from him. He pulled away, nipping at her lips. She tried to get his tongue again, quickly becoming enamored with the taste of him. She vaguely mused that Ely hadn’t been lying about the addictive quality of the mating hormone.

                “Yeah baby, take it all… sweet god,” he groaned, plunging his tongue into her mouth again, stroking and teasing hers as she licked up all of the taste she could find on his tongue. The heat turned up several notches in her body and she moaned, twisting her body against his and grinding her pussy on his bare thigh. She could feel the wetness between her legs, and she raked her nails down his back, desperate for him to do something and make the burn ease.

                “Please… please, Augustus…” she panted, grinding harder. He moved, parting her legs with his and positioning his cock at her entrance.

                “I can’t wait… fuck, I’m sorry,” he groaned, and plunged inside her in one hard stroke.

                Elizabeth’s back bowed off the bed and she screamed, her eyes rolling back. Pleasure slammed through her, stoking the fires the mating hormone had been spreading through her into an inferno. Time lost all meaning as he moved in her, his lips claiming hers as he held her tightly to him, powering his cock inside of her hard and fast. Her shattering moans echoed around them, mingling with his growls as she felt her release quickly build inside of her, reaching a peak she didn’t know if she would survive.

                “Augustus!” she screamed, her nails piercing his shoulders as her pussy spasmed on his cock and she erupted into the most powerful release she had ever felt in her entire life. Then her eyes widened as he snarled, feeling the barb become erect from his cock, abruptly locking inside of her against the most sensitive bundle of nerves and setting off a series of explosions in her that it left her completely breathless. She came over and over, each orgasm cresting and melding into the next one as she shuddered in rapture, vaguely aware of his incisors locked in the same shoulder wound again. His hips jerked as the barb fluttered over the sensitive area of her vagina, deep spurts of semen and hormone erupting from it and his cock. The pleasure was so overwhelming, Elizabeth could only let out one more weak moan before succumbing to sleep, her arms wrapped tightly around her Bengal.

                Her Mate.

\-----

                Augustus came to awareness a few minutes after the earth shattering release as the barb slowly receded from his cock. He was absolutely horrified. Nothing in the reports had mentioned anything about the animalistic quality his body would take on with his mate, and he was afraid of Elizabeth’s reaction. Would she be disgusted? Terrified? Unable to deal with the fact that she had mated an animal?

                For long moments he agonized over these questions, gingerly removing his teeth from her shoulder and laving the now less swollen glands over them, spilling his scent into her to make her even more his. Seeing her in that forest and smelling the chemical suppression of the heat had been an affront to his animal senses, and the tiger had roared inside of him at the fact that she had barely carried his scent. Objectively, he knew their short time together coupled with the six months apart made perfect logical sense that his scent wouldn’t have had much of a hold on her, but the animal hadn’t cared. It had wanted its mate, and it had wanted its scent all over her, inside her. Mixed into her very being so that none could say that she wasn’t his.

                Now she smelled like him, and he realized, bemusedly, that he smelled like her. Their scents were mingling, slowly but surely into a unique scent that was just their own.

                The purr that erupted from his chest jolted him, and he scrambled back from her, biting back a groan as his half hard cock slipped out of her tight pussy. The purr faltered, and with much concentration he managed to stop it. What the fuck. He had never purred, ever. In his life. He didn’t even know that he could.

                Elizabeth sighed, curling towards him and he cautiously lay down next to her, pulling her onto his chest. After a little wriggling around and some adorable grumpy sounds, she snuggled against his side, one leg thrown over his and her arm wrapped tightly around his waist. She nuzzled her head into his shoulder, and fell deeper into her sleep. Augustus gritted his teeth at the sudden tightness in his throat, and glared into the deepening darkness of the room as the sun slowly set. Another purr rumbled out of his chest and he huffed in exasperation. He, the top assassin in his lab with more blood on his hands than he cared to remember, was purring. _Purring_. This damn woman was going to be the death of him.

                He closed his eyes, drifting into a light sleep, an ear trained for any threats towards his mate. Now that he finally had her, this one person nature had for some unknown, blessed reason, decreed was his and his alone, he’d kill anyone who tried to take her from his arms.


End file.
